Adventures Abroad: Cambodia, Bayon & Banety Kdei

After we got breakfast and collected the rest of the group we went to another temple to start the day. Our tour guide, Hour (Ohh-ray), was awesome. The first temple we went to was Bayon in Angkor Thom, which, 1100 years ago would have been the dead center of the capital city. The temple is exactly 1.5 kilometers from each of the four entrances that would have led to the city.

Hour told us on the way in; we had to cross a long causeway, that the statues on either side of us were divided as gods and demons. They were holding the long body of the Naga and looked like they were playing tug-o-war.

Except almost all of them were missing their heads.

During the Khmer Rouge and toward the end of the Rouge’s reign, higher ups would go to these ancient temples and lop the heads off the statues. The statues themselves were too old, too heavy to be moved, so they just took their heads and sold them to the highest Western bidder. Hour told us a lot of stories of the Khmer Rouge. He was probably around ten or twelve when they came in to power and he can clearly remember them executing his 8 month old brother. They tossed the baby up in the air and caught him on bayonets. Hour’s grandfather was killed by having his throat slit with a palm spike. It took him seven hours to bleed out and die. He told us that for the really small babies they would swing them against trees and crush their skulls. He said it was rare anyone was executed with a bullet since bullets cost money. The Khmer Rouge killed people with water. They’d let water drip on their foreheads until the water wore through their skulls and drilled a hole through their brains. Any skulls you find on the killing fields that have a hole in the forehead are people who were killed with water.

He told us that before we visited this temple.

Originally Bayon had 37 towers, each tour has four faces that point in the cardinal directions. They stand for Compassion, Peace, Serenity, and Mercy. Now, only about half the towers remain standing, a lot of them fell from a thousand years of wear and tear and others were struck by lightning. The irony of this temple with its faces of love being looted by people who spent years soaked in blood and violence is painful.

Again, lots of restoration has been done but you can still climb all over it. The relief sculptures on the first floor of the temple are incredible. Hour told us they depict a great sea battle between the Khmer and Cham who were Vietnamese. There are also depictions of just everyday life and dangers such as the man being mauled by a tiger and his buddy running like hell. There’re pictures of people going to market loaded with goods or with meat from hunting. I could’ve stared at them for hours, but it was hot as hell, crowded as fuck, and only about two people were really paying attention to what he was saying so we breezed through there pretty quick. We went up to the second level and Hour cut us loose to explore on our own.

It was amazing, the small rooms where statues of Buddha had once stood were all over the place and there were tiny rooms that I’m certain belonged to monks also tucked away. It was so amazing to stand in those windows and look out at the jungle knowing that a thousand years ago monks would have looked out on a bustling city, crowded and dusty, loud with people selling their wares, loud with the sound of carts and livestock. I loved it. I love that you can clamber over these stones the way people a thousand years ago did. If something like this was in the US every part of it would be roped off, you wouldn’t be able to touch anything. But here? You wanna go up to the top tower and look out over the jungle? Just watch your step the stairs are steep.

We didn’t spend enough time there. This temple easily could have taken half a day just wandering around it, around the grounds. Hell, there was even and elephant riding thing you could do. I wouldn’t. You can’t ride elephants. Their spines are made to carry heavy weight on their underside, not on top. You can cause them a lot of pain riding them. That’s why you so often see people riding elephants up on their necks and not on their humps.

Anyway. I really loved this temple.

 

oOo

The next temple we went to is called Banety Kdei and don’t ask me to pronounce it because I for the life of me cannot remember how. This is better known as the Jungle Temple. This is the temple the set of Tomb Raider was based on. We walked through the jungle to get to it passing trees that could give Redwoods a run for their money. We saw monkeys and heard some strange bird calls. If not for the occasional passing cyclist and motorbike it was easy to believe we were explorers about to stumble on an incredible archeological find.

While we were walking, Hour told us that landmines were often left around temples particularly by the entrance to not only kill anyone coming in but to also damage these ancient wonders.

People really, really, fucking suck.

But we got to the temple and Ohhhhh Myyyyy Goddds! I loved it. I could spend an entire day at this temple. It wasn’t that crowded, not like Bayon, it seems it’s a kind of out of the way temple so we really had a free run of the place. This temple has only limited restoration, just enough to keep it standing. And it’s being left like that so that others, like us, can see what All of these temples looked like when they were rediscovered. Places like Bayon and Angkor, they’ve been painstakingly cleared of the jungle and you don’t really think about four hundred year old trees growing out of the roof. But here you can see the tree roots wrapped around stone slowly pulling them apart. It’s a really magical place. And since there was hardly anyone else there it was easy to flit off down one corridor and not see anyone for ten minutes.

The weathering of the stone is remarkable, but what’s amazing is that you can still see the details. These stones have been covered in trees, rained on, been whipped by wind and dust, for 900 years and still you can see individual leaves on vines, you can see the faces of Buddhas.

I was late getting back to the bus from this one. I spent so much time roaming the grounds the forty-five minutes just wasn’t enough. I could spend from sun up to sun down at this temple, it was amazing.

oOo

We stopped for lunch at a really expensive tourist trap. So, since we didn’t want to pay five dollars for a plate of fries, several of us got up and started to walk back to the small market we passed. We found a little family run place not far down the road and settled in to eat noodle soup for a dollar. I got a coconut. I know coconut milk is a huge thing in the States, but here, they give you a whole coconut that they lop the top off of and stick a straw in. So the coconut milk here is super fresh. I’ve gotta say, though. I didn’t really like the coconut milk. It looks like water but it’s a lot thicker than water. It’s weird.

But after our lunch we finally got to return to Angkor Wat for the rest of the day, which was like two hours.

I pity the people who didn’t come to the Sunrise Tour and get to spend an extra hour and a half at this temple. There’s no way they saw even half of the temple. I didn’t see that much. I went in and walked down that long causeway again thinking of the kings and monks that had trod there and off to the right spotted a horse. Because nothing gets my attention like an animal, I skipped down the steps and went over to see what this was about.

The horse was a lovely buckskin named Bon May, his mane was cut short but his tail was long and black that faded to grey and white at the tips. He had a really decorative red halter that he didn’t seem to enjoy but he was a sweetie. The man standing with him asked if I wanted a picture, one dollar, but nah, I don’t need a picture with a horse. So I thanked him for letting me pet Bon May and before I could walk away the guy asked if I wanted to go around the small temple once.

Dude, I was on that horse so fast I almost fell off the other side. English saddle. That was an experience in and of itself. I don’t ride horses often, hardly ever, and when I do I have a sturdy western saddle with a horn to hold. Not this time! So as I’m taking a stroll around the temple—the guy leading Bon May, thank the gods—I got a crash course on how to ride an English saddle and I freaking got to ride a horse around one of the small temples.

That was the best five dollars I’ve spent in a very long time.

So I went back to exploring and decided I would start on the left side and work my way to the right. I had no idea how far back the temple went. It goes on for a couple acres. I got into the inner temple and started running around darting in and out of corridors, dodging tourists and snapping pictures of pretty much everything.

Then, I found this small courtyard in the back. It had a small temple in the middle of it that rose probably two stories off the ground. One of my fellow teachers had already climbed to the top of the shady side and was sitting watching the birds and tourists. There seemed to be an invisible line separating this temple from the rest of Angkor Wat. No one wanted to pass the threshold and go out.

I did.

I clambered up those stairs, a little nerve wracking since they weren’t the tourist friendly wooden stairs that were built in other parts of the temple, but the original four inch ledges that are crumbling and loose and broken down to nothing but a tiny lip in some places.

I made it to the top and just sat there for a couple minutes. It was so nice. No other tourists came out to follow me and the heavy stone walls of the rest of the temple blocked most of the noise. There were thousands of people there but I couldn’t hear any of them. All I could hear were birds and wind. It was wonderful and it was probably the truest experience of any of the temple. Just the quiet and the peace. I slept for about ten minutes, just a quick little nap in the sun. It felt amazing and I probably would have stayed a little groggy for the rest of the time had I not had to climb down those eighty degree stairs again. Seriously, these things were built at a near ninety degree angle I wouldn’t be surprised if more than one person broke their necks back in Angkor’s heyday.

I made it all the way inside to the inner temple and found the Stairs to Eternity. They’re stairs that lead to the highest point of the temple and I really wanted to climb them. There was kind of a line so I figured I’d do a lap around the top and see what else was up there before jumping in and climbing up. I only had like fifteen minutes before I was supposed to meet the group so I wouldn’t be able to linger once I reached the top.

I circled around to the backside of the tower and was on my way to the stairs when another tour guide says to his group, “Line is very long, we can’t do this today.” And he pointed at these clumps of people sitting and standing around and I realized I was at the end of the line for the Stairs to Eternity.

Much like the Eiffel Tower, I’m a little put out I didn’t get to go to the top and see what there is too see, but I had to get back. I was already past the time I was supposed to meet them and I didn’t really have a clear idea of how I was supposed to get to our meeting spot since I had been in and out of courtyards and temples for two hours.

I made it out of the temple proper and started my way back to the causeway. Along the way I stopped to love on a little temple kitten that was wobbling its way across the stones. Adorable little Tuxedo kitty with little white paws. Really considered putting him in my bag but since he’d have to stay in quarantine in China for six months that’s not really a fair thing to put the little guy through.

So I was half an hour late getting to the bus and didn’t care one little bit. I really wish the trip could have been two full days instead of one. I would have loved to spend a full day at Angkor and a half day at Bayon and Kdei each. I think, after my contract in China, I might come back to Cambodia for a few days and explore the temples on my own time. They have three day passes that give you access to all the temples—there’s like a dozen—and that would very much be worth the trip back.